Friday, September 01, 2017

Nelson Report: Randall Schriver in the Administration at last?

The Chih Kan Lou in Tainan

From The Nelson Report this week:

As long as we're retailing informed gossip from down on Chincoteague (sunny today but showers all weekend, dammit!!) two items for the Asia side: first, a senior Administration source says that with Victor Cha firmly expected to be announced soon for Amb to S. Korea (as we reported last night in #2), we can also expect "any minute" the long-expected pick of former DOD DAS Randy Schriver to be Asia Asst. Sec. for Sec. Mattis.

Randy is described by Japanese media as a "hard liner", which we suppose he can be called, but our long experience with him is he's eminently reasonable, and does not suffer from delusions that he or the US can "make" things happen. We can certainly understand why our Chinese friends won't be happy, as Randy has long championed a more public, more official-as-possible set of relations with and support for Taiwan, including setting up and managing the 2049 Institute.

As most Asia hands know, Schriver is a long-time business partner with, and likely would cheerfully agree has been a "protégé" of Rich Armitage, everyone's idea of a Serious Adult Supervisor on whatever he wants to talk about.

Whether all this relates to the welcome departure of both Bannon and Gorka from the White House and also means Sec. St. Tillerson is any closer to bring in political appointments...stay tuned...but Japanese sources say they hear career FSO- Acting A/S Asia Susan Thornton will finally be cleared by the WH, as long desired by Tillerson and blocked by WH political commissars. Whether that helps improve State's cratering morale (scroll down for Dan Drezner's call for Tillerson to hang it up)...inshallah.

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